Edible Plants
When searching for food in the jungle, it's sometimes safer and easier to go for plants rather than hunting animals. Most of them are easy to identify and quite nutritious. Moreover, they grow in abundance in the jungles of Felarya. You'd better concentrate when gathering them though, to avoid picking poisonous species or plants with undesirable effects. Citroise The Citroise tree is a plant native to Felarya that grows in humid zones such as the Chordoni waterfalls or Chidokai forest. They produce the citroise, a fruit that resembles a huge, fleshy, plump purple peach, and it is absolutely delicious. Its size varies a lot, from that of a large apple, to 7 feet in diameter for the larger specimens! Its skin texture is smooth, thin, and slightly fibrous, and its inside are very juicy, pulpy, sweet, and extremely refreshing. Its unique rich and pleasant fragrance is discernible from far away if you have an acute sense of smell. The Citroise is one of the most celebrated fruit in all Felarya, eaten raw or sliced and processed in to juice, jams, jellies, nectars, preserves, and cocktails. Citroise Smoothie Stands are common in Negav, serving delicious Citroise drinks. Telltale Tree A deciduous tree found almost anywhere in Felarya. It produces a citrus-like fruit that beats constantly, much like a heart, when fresh. The Telltale fruit tastes tangy and delicious, but the sensation of eating a pulsating fruit is enough to make most a tad queasy. Stam Root A common and easy to harvest root that is found almost anywhere in Felarya. Easy to find due to its unique pale pink leaves that grow up from the ground, the roots can be eaten raw for a mildly palatable meal. Stam Roots fill their consumer with seemingly boundless energy, and are very helpful for tired, hungry travelers. Just beware of the the pink leaves as they are slightly poisonous, and taste horrible too. Drakewillow The fruit of the Drakewillow tree is famous and a particular favorite of many of the races in Felarya. It's named the Dragonapple because of its fiery bite. It has been described as being "maidenly to the mouth, yet boisterous in the belly" and "a bit like cinnamon". The Dragonapple is the primary ingredient in Dragonapple juice and Dragonapple wine, highly sought in Felaryan taverns. When collecting Dragonapples however, one must watch out for the dangerous drakewillow nexolt that might be lurking near the tree. Wafelberry A pleasing red berry that appears to have a flavor reminiscent of a strawberry, and is readily identified by a sweet aroma that can be smelled for quite a long distance. The Wafelberry is an aqueous plant that grows in slow moving streams, where it draws nutrients from the surrounding water and stream bed. It is not unusual to find streams which are absolutely clogged with the delicious berries, and these brilliant red streams are referred to as Wafel Brooks, and are a treat to any hungry traveler who runs across one in the forest. However mermaids also enjoy these berries, often treating themselves to a dessert of sweet berries after eating whoever may have been trying to grab a few berries for themselves. Sogram Tastimus This plant grows mostly in the Forest of whispers and the Fairy kingdom, and thus is very much used by fairies, who are numerous in these zones. It looks like a huge, spherical bulb with a tiny blow hole. The bulb produces a fine powder called Sogram sugar that, when spread on something, or someone, gives it a very sweet and tasty flavor. The plant is pretty fickle, and tends to blows its content at the lightest shock. The Sogram produces the sugar very quickly, and some fairies even harvest it to enhance the taste of their meals. Licroa Seed A plant so tiny, it almost looks like a sort of fluffy mold at first glance. The Licroa can pretty much grow everywhere and is very common. What makes the plant so remarkable however, are its seeds. The size of a dust peck, Licroa seeds carry an amazingly strong and spicy flavor. They are a much sought after by humans to flavor their foods. They are so small however, that only tinies can properly tend them and extract their seeds. Trulps Trulps are large potato-like tubers native to Felarya. They have been cultivated into dozens of varieties suited for a wide range of habitats. Farmed as an important food crop for Negav and other Felaryan cities, its extreme hardiness and its ability to grow in a wide variety of soils makes it an ideal food source. It is also capable of rapidly growing to the size of a man within a few weeks, a relatively fast growth rate which makes it highly prized by farmers. They are typically grown in large amounts and are thus relatively cheap. This tends to make them a common food source for the poor. Its high starch content makes it relatively filling, though it lacks many of the nutrients needed for a healthy growing body. Jinjamb A weird vine that spirals upward its entire life. The stem is a light green helix than can reach as high as 20 feet. While it doesn't have any fruit, the stem has a noticeable amount of sweetness when bitten into. The flavor is a bit odd, like a sweetened piece of lettuce. As such, the juice of the Jinjamb as used by many as a mild sweetener in food and drinks. Vials of Jinjamb juice can be bought cheaply in Negav markets for sweetening just about anything that needs to be sweetened. As for the plant itself, it may be diced and added to a salad for a more welcoming flavor, or perhaps boiled in a soup to flavor the broth. In pies, as toppings on frozen deserts, as garnish, and even in candy, Jinjamb has a wide variety of uses. Galambos Galambos plants are tall herbaceous stems sticking out from the ground with a few leaves drooping from the apex. This extremely common plant grows all over the forests of mid-Felarya. Its fruit is a bit odd, however; it has an ovoid yellow-orangish shape with a peel and soft insides, similar to a banana. The white insides are rather starchy, and are generally baked whole, mashed, or stewed. It is a mildly nutritious food very commonly served alongside main courses. The peel, however, is a sweet, vanilla-like flavor that can be eaten as well. Galambos peel pies are a common treat in Negav, and, due to the abundance of the fruit, boiled galambos peels are a very common dessert in the poorer parts of the city. Succuberry Growing on small stalks throughout Felarya are the small, oblong red berries known as succuberries. By themselves, they are very rarely eaten due to the legendarily massive amount of capsaicin contained in each berry. The burn of just one berry is said to be equal to the fires of hell engulfing and consuming your tongue, hence the name. One berry is dangerous, but too many, even just two for some, can be fatal! Naturally, there are daredevils who will pop these berries just for the sake of doing so, but just one drop of the extract will make any dish a wildfire of burning heat. Aside from food, succuberries are used in especially strong pepper sprays, and are also applied to clothing as deterrents for predators, an act that requires extreme care so that bare skin does not touch the succuberry extract, as that would be extremely painful. Episcopa This odd plant is a rambling vine growing on the ground, in slightly damp environments, throughout Felarya. It's famous for its fruit, the Scopa and especially the very unique way it's dispersed. It's not a particularly good looking fruit, with a somewhat rough green skin with yellowish and brown blots, about the size of an orange. As it grows, the elastic stem of the scopa starts to stretch, twirl and twist on itself, and to sprout several big flat leaves. Once ripe, the plant suddenly releases the fruit and the stem rapidly un-twirl, making the leaves spin, not unlike the blades of a helicopter, propelling the fruit high into the air, where it's carried a bit by the wind, before crashing back on the ground and bursting itself open, releasing its seeds. The Scopa fruit is delicious, with a rich and tangy flavor but gathering it can be pretty tricky, as the fruit needs to be caught either before it crashes in to the ground, or gathered just moments before it's launched in order to get it at its most flavorful. Oosoon Berry Oosoon berries grow mostly on the shores of the lake of illusions and the Misty glade. The fruit is heavily charged in magic and tastes a bit like chocolate, white grapes, and blueberries. They have a fairly high nutritional value, but tend to be more used in alchemy than as food. Being a magical fruit, oosoon berries have interesting effects on some innately magical races such as fairies. Basically, it intoxicates them, making them all drunk and giddy. It does not have this effect on non-magical races though. Tetleaf Sinensis A fairly common shrub known to grow in many locations around Felarya. Its foliage is of a dark green hue, with thin papery delicate leaves that tear apart easily. When they are harvested, the leaves are distinctly bitter and provide little to no nutritional value raw. However, when the leaves are steeped in hot water and used to brew tea they release their inherent nutrients, resulting in a profoundly revitalizing drink said to encourage higher brain function. Thermoses of hot tetleaf tea are hence common fare for adventurers and the poor, helping them focus through long periods of activity. Meticulously-grown versions of the plant are also cultivated in the upper echelons of Negav society, producing exquisitely fine teas for the rich and noble. Credits to: *Icalasari for the Telltale tree *Jasconius for the Trulps *French-snack for the Licroa seeds *Simonlorimer for the Tetleaf Sinensis *Asaenvolk for Oosoon berries *Aisukaiko for the Galambos, Succuberry and Jinjamb *Shady-Knight for the Sogram Tastimus *Silent eric for the Stam Root, Wafelberry and Drakewillow.